AAS -> UMPI BAS, MIS minor: how I did it in less than 6 months

[slumw]

This week the I turned in the final assessments for my last two classes, they have been graded and I applied for my degree. I wanted to make a post on here because I heavily leveraged this forum when planning my degree and I figured the info I've gathered could help others as well.

Before starting
Before starting anything I began degree planning in November of last year. I knew wanted to finish my bachelors but I wasn't really sure the best way to do it. I really wanted a CS degree but more importantly I just wanted to complete my bachelors asap.

For reference, at this point in time I already had around 100 credits and an AAS degree from a local community college. I'm not going to go through my full collegiate history because it's a lot to unpack. Though I do want to note that a couple years ago I had tried finishing my bachelors through WGU's Business Management program. I had a really bad experience with them and withdrew from the university after taking just a few courses.

Before any serious research or degree planning I applied to UW Flex for a BS IST degree. According to their planning form I would need 42 credits to graduate. They do 3 month subscription periods and estimated it would take 4-5 periods in order to graduate (3 courses per period completion rate). This really freaked me out because I absolutely did not want to be in school for a year or longer.

My research
Around this same time I discovered this forum and really started to dig into how others went about degree planning. I really wanted to make use of all the credits I already had because it just seemed like such a waste and I would still need 50-60 credits to graduate. I realized my options to fully utilize my AAS degree were limited. There really aren't many online programs out there that make use of an AAS.

Quick side note: I really did want to get a CS degree but decided graduating quickly and for less money was more important. If you believe that you need a certain type of degree to reach your goals, it's probably best to go for that. I went as far as to take Sophia's Calc I course (this was before they offered pre-calc) and applied to WGU's CS program. They were only going to take around 60 credits so this really wasn't going to work for me.

After doing the research it looked like UMPI was going to be my best option. Reading through these various threads and pages helped me get there:

• Pierpont BOG AAS to UMPI BAS-MIS
  
• BAS (for AAS holders) vs BLS
  
• Pierpoint Associates (AAS) and UMPI Bachelor's degree Excel template
  
• Pierpont to UMPI Degree Plan
  
• University of Maine at Presque Isle
  

My plan
For me, I was mainly missing general education courses. I had enough technical courses required for the BAS at UMPI from my AAS degree and my previous time at WGU. I only had a couple Sophia courses completed before applying to UMPI in December. From the degree plan they sent I determined the general education courses I needed to take from Sophia. 

General education Sophia courses I took before starting at UMPI:

• Calculus I
  

• US History I
  
• US History II
  
• Introduction to Ethics
  
• Spanish I
  
• Environmental Science
  

Note: I took American Government through UMPI but they now offer it on Sophia. I'm pretty much always going to recommend taking courses through Sophia versus the actual university. I just don't like writing and you have to write much more in the CBE portal versus on Sophia which almost always has multiple choice final exams.

I wasn't going to be able to start until Spring 2 so I just did these Sophia courses in that downtime. Once I had everything complete I transferred them in and had UMPI re-evaluate my transfer credits. 

I've seen people say not to do this and others say that it's okay. It worked out okay for me but I can see where things could go wrong. After I did this, my degree plan still was not perfect based off my credits but we got it worked out. It does add a some stress to the whole process. You definitely should not do this as a means to be lazy and not keep track of what you need in order to get your degree. 

Staying organized
Throughout the entire process I kept track of all the courses I've taken and every course I needed to take in order to complete my degree. I used a table in notion to do this but I've seen others use excel spreadsheets. My table consists of my entire college credit history going back to very beginning. 

The columns I use are:

• Course name
  
• Course code
  
• Credits (1, 3, 4)
  
• Status (Not started, In progress, Complete)
  
• School 
  
• Tags 
  
• Grade
  
• Term (Start date, End date)
  
• Days (Time spent to complete the course based off term)
  
• Type (Traditional, CBE, Subscription)
  
• Modality (In person, Online)
  
• URL
  
• Quality points (Based off grade, in by GPA column)
  
• GPA (Used to give an cumulative GPA)
  

This is not at all necessary but I like keeping tabs on my courses. It's really satisfying to visualize the progress your making. It helps keep you keep organized and stay on track with the courses your take.

My UMPI experience
During the two terms I was enrolled I completed 11 courses. In the Spring 2 term I completed 4 courses. In this Summer 1 term I completed 7 courses.

The first course I took was American Government. There were 3 Milestone activities that required writing and a written paper for the final assessment. 

In these Milestone activities most professors want you answer a question or a series of questions based off of course text. They expect you to expand on the topic from the course text. Be sure to give original thoughts and use outside references to support your answers when necessary. This goes for all the milestone activities you take.

The final assessment was a written paper describing two political issues facing the country. I had to break down each issue at different levels of government. This was the first of many papers I wrote. All the papers I wrote had to be in APA formatting. I had never written in APA before so it took a little time really getting up to speed. I typically started from an APA 7 template on Google docs and went from there. I like to write my papers and then do my references. A lot of the time I used concensus.app in order to find references to support whatever I was writing about. 

Every course I took had a series of Milestone activities. These have to be completed in order for you to progress through a course. Some courses had more than others. I noticed that courses with multiple choice final assessments had more Milestone activities. This might have just been my experience and not actually the case for every course.

There were multiple types of final assessments. I mentioned paper writing and multiple choice finals already but there was also project based final assessments as well. I found that pretty much all of the project based finals lacked clear direction. For all of them I just kind of went with my interpretation of the instructions and it worked out. 

Very rarely did I turn in drafts. I was always extremely confident in the work I put out so I almost never submit drafts. I know there is a pinned thread explaining the pros for turning in drafts. Maybe read that and decide what you want to do. 

The one time I did submit a draft was towards the end of the Spring 2 term. When you get close to the end of the term you'll get an email from your success coach giving this info:

• Last date to add a class
  
• Last date to withdraw with a "W" grade
  
• Last date to submit draft
  
• Last date of classes
  
  

Withdrawing from a course takes away any progress you've made but you do not get an "F" at least which would affect your GPA. 

On average I completed a course every 16 days. Some took less time than others. The shortest time I spent on a course was 1 day. The longest time I spent on a course was 29 days. To be honest it's almost always going to be what you make it. Some professors are slower to grade than others but you really do go at your own pace. I would recommend taking electives based on your actual interests or aspirations. I find it rather difficult staying engaged in course I'm simply not interested in.

Conclusion
Finishing my degree through UMPI has been a positive experience. I've enjoyed it much more than the time I spent at WGU. There are aspects of UMPI that are lacking in comparison but I'm very happy how everything has played out for me. If you're thinking about finishing your AAS through UMPI I would recommend it. You will have to push yourself through it but all in all I don't think you can beat the value.

[tsgreer]

Thank you for this write-up! I'm almost following your plan exactly. I recently got my AAS,BOG from Pierpont, and my first class for UMPI is July 3.

So your write-up is very inspiring because i wanna finish it up and graduate in 2 terms as well.

[bjcheung77]

@slumw, That is an awesome and detailed write up! It's great going from AAS to the BAS UMPI, even though you had to go through some "freak out" moments with UW Flex and some 'unwanted' moments with WGU. You're very organized and much more detailed than most people, that's a very complete table... I really liked reading this and how you compared it to WGU's CBE option, UMPI isn't for everyone, I'm glad they fit your style and the main thing is, you finished! Congrats, UMPI is a very good choice! You can always add to that the trifecta by mixing/matching certs such as the Google/TADA options for say Project Management, get some more experience under your belt, and if you want, go for the Masters of your choice.